Supreme Court sides with Trump and blocks asylum claims at the Mexican border

The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the policy approved by the Donald Trump administration that bars migrants who arrive at the border with Mexico from applying for asylum. The six conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted in favor of denying migrants entry. Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

As a result of the ruling, border officials will be able to turn migrants away before they physically cross the border from Mexico into the United States, thereby preventing them from seeking asylum. “In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the ruling.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had determined that noncitizens who were turned away before they could enter the country had “arrived in” the United States for purposes of federal immigration law and therefore could apply for asylum, a finding the Supreme Court has now overturned.

In a separate ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court also sided with the Trump, allowing it to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians. As a result, around 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians will lose protection from deportation. The Supreme Court ruled that the decision to terminate TPS is largely not subject to judicial review and rejected claims that ending Haiti’s status was based on racial discrimination.

The move could affect up to one million migrants from other countries whose protections have also been revoked as part of Trump’s broader push to expand deportations.

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